Terror alerts, 9/11-style bombings and murders of British citizens
will soon come to London’s streets, according to chilling threats from
UK citizens fighting alongside Islam’s most violent terrorist group
operating in Syria and Iraq.

The threat comes from British nationals fighting for the Sunni
militant group calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) in Syria. According to the Sunday Times,
they promise that after they’re done there, Britain is next. The
message comes from three such fighters, all youngsters in their
teens and twenties.

According to the Times, these aren’t regular
disenchanted youths at all: one is a 20-year-old hacker from
Birmingham, who once stole Tony Blair’s details and posted them
online, later serving time for an unrelated violence charge.

The “black flag of jihad” will fly over Downing Street,
Junaid Hussain warned on June 4, spelling out the horrors to
come. He’s been fighting in Syria for over a year now.

Another, 19-year-old Muhammad Hassan, from Portsmouth, was a
student at a prestigious school. He warned on Twitter that if the
US doesn’t cease threats over drone strikes on ISIS positions,
9/11-style attacks on America would follow.

The third, also from Portsmouth, promised a “killing
spree” of British citizens if he were ever to return to
Britain.

“Imagine if someone were to detonate a bomb at voting
stations or ambushed the vans that carry the casted [sic] votes.
It would mess the whole system up,” came another tweet from
Junaid Hussain, before he re-tweeted a warning from a like-minded
countryman for British people to “watch out,” because
“we’ll come back to the UK and wreak havoc.”

Among his other offenses, Hussain has also been seen posting
bomb-making advice on the internet, as well as tips on how to
smuggle explosive devices through airport security.

Getting to Syria from Britain isn’t as difficult as some would
think: the youths simply travel to Turkey, then crossed the
border. One of them was caught by CCTV cameras at the time,
traveling on a holiday flight from London Gatwick airport to
Turkey’s Antalya. Hassan’s group (not including the
aforementioned tweeters) had three other people, all in their
mid-twenties. After reaching Turkey, they headed over to Syria by
car.

This is nowhere near the first time the public
has seen British nationals fighting alongside Middle-Eastern
extremists. There have been numerous threats, government
monitoring of scores of returnees and reports that British Sunni
jihadists use Syria as a training
ground before taking the battle to home soil.

What’s more striking is how news of their particular cruelty is
widespread in Syria itself: Britons comprise an overwhelming
majority of foreigners inside ISIS, an organization who are
labeled ‘terrorists’ for their bloody campaign of ruthless
executions and body mutilations even by other elements of the
Syrian opposition.

One Free Syrian Army General spoke
in horror of what some 400 British extremists fighting there were
capable of doing. He pointed out that ISIS’s already dark record
did not originate from actions by local fighters alone.

Further illustrating the scale of foreign involvement in ISIS
operations, Mike Rogers, the US chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, speaking to Fox News alleged
that there are “thousands” of American and European
volunteers and mercenaries fighting for ISIS, which “has the
capability to tap people with Western passports to send them back
to Europe and the United States for terrorist activity.”

“This is as dangerous as it gets,” said the Republican
politician, who urged Barack Obama to use his influence with
Sunni Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to rein in
ISIS – which is likely partly funded by powerful sympathizers
within those countries.

The current threats take place amid a fearsome escalation of
violence in Iraq, which has been spiraling
out of control the closer ISIS got to Baghdad. Army
desertions abound as militants storm through the country,
capturing hundreds of millions of dollars in American weapons and
equipment and parading them in videos.

The rebels are currently storming through the major cities of
Mosul and Tikrit, continuing
to post videos of beheadings on their way to the capital.

Britain has been taking steps to curb the spread of extremism on
its soil. Over the weekend, Twitter blocked all ISIS-related
accounts and the accounts of its supporters at home in the UK.
This is a sensible move, given most of the communication between
worldwide supporters of the jihadist cause is done on social
networks, where the above British-born terrorists all use new
Islamic names.

Prime Minister David Cameron is also ringing alarm bells,
asserting that Britain has become too tolerant for its own good,
bringing about a rise in extremism. The PM has called on several
occasions for the protection and promotion of “British
values” as a counterweight to the perceived malignant
Islamization of Britain. He now believes the government has been
too soft in a number of ways, according to a recent public
address.

“It isn’t enough simply to respect these values in schools.
They’re not options, they’re the core of what it is to live in
Britain,” Cameron told the public.

"In recent years we have been in danger of sending out a
worrying message: that if you don't want to believe in democracy,
that's fine; that if equality isn't your bag, don't worry about
it; that if you're completely intolerant of others, we will still
tolerate you,” the PM asserted.

“That's not just led to division; it has also allowed
extremism – of both the violent and non-violent kind - to
flourish. We need to be far more muscular in promoting British
values and the institutions that uphold them,” he said,
shortly after a major scare involving an alleged Trojan Horse
plot to Islamicize certain British schools, which prompted an
investigation and much bickering within the government.

The members of the CRS (Compagnie Républicaine de
Sécurité - riot police squad) assigned to the task of protecting a synagogue in
Julien-Lacroix Street of district XX in Paris were the subjects of threats made
by five unknown individuals carrying a Kalashnikov and a handgun yesterday, the
14th of June, at about seven p.m.

After having pointed the guns at the agents, the
aggressors did as if they were shooting at them before fleeing on two scooters.
No (real) shots were fired.

The agents having been the victims of this act of
intimidation told about the incident in the headquarters of the second district judicial
police in charge of the investigations. “We strongly condemn this kind of
intimidation in front of a place of Jewish faith”, Christophe Crépin, from the
UNSA police union, declared. “We bow our heads in front of the high
self-control and the professional behavior of the CRS agents in the face of a
situation which could have easily escalated”.

In the evening it was made known at the
headquarters of the Paris Police that a 21-years-old man was questioned a few
minutes after the incident, without knowing whether he was a member of the
group of aggressors. He was put under custody. Many other youngsters were seen on
several occasions during the evening in the neighborhood.

Security forces drove back the migrants, who tried to storm a three-tier
barbed wire border fence that separates Morocco from Melilla, a Spanish
territory.

It is the latest in a string of desperate attempts to breach the fence.
Hundreds have scrambled across in recent months, but the border was
recently fortified with mesh fences and Spanish security forces have
increased patrols.

Melilla is one of two Spanish-held cities on the northern coast of
Africa, the other being Ceuta to the east. The number of migrants
attempting to cross has risen in recent months, many attempting in
groups to try and overwhelm border guards.

"Anti-climbing mesh and the collaboration of the Moroccan forces with
the (Spanish) civil guard managed to stop an attempt to cross by about a
thousand migrants," the Spanish government delegation in Melilla said.

"None of the immigrants managed to reach the city," it added.

According to estimates by the Interior Ministry in Madrid, about 40,000
Africans of sub-Saharan origin are waiting for an opportunity to go to
Spain. The immigrant reception center in Melilla is understood to be
highly overcrowded.

Crisis situation

There has also been a recent increase in the number of boats
trying to reach Europe from North Africa,
often originating in Libya, where criminal gangs organizing boat trips
have flourished amid the breakdown of law and order in the country.

Most of the migrants come from Eritrea or Syria, with others fleeing impoverished parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Illegal immigration, a burden which is turning increasingly heavy for
Italy. The accommodation of an ever increasing number of immigrants who remain in
the place for ever increasing periods of time is making tensions with the
locals arise, as for example in Porto Palo di Capo Passero, in the South West of
Sicily. But this also cripples municipalities financially. The situation is
such that Sicily had to declare the state of emergency for the towns concerned.

In the senate, the opposition has presented motions to put an end to the „Mare
Nostrum”, the plan designed to rescue immigrants, but the government did not
agree with that. While speaking about „pride”, the vicepresident estimated that
40.000 illegal immigrants had already been saved. Instead, what the Italian Government
wants is to get the EU more involved in the „Mare Nostrum”.

This operation, which puts in action a huge number of military and civil
resources on the Mediterranean sea, was launched last October following the deadly
sinking of two boats off the coast of Lampedusa. It is a very expensive
humanitarian effort which costs many hundreds of thousands of eurosa day. The immigration policy of the EU will
be an important issue for the Italian presidency of the Union starting next
July.

According to
estimations made last Tuesday by Hans-Georg Maaßen, the president of the Office
for the Protection of the Constitution, some 100 Syrian fighters have already
returned to Germany, and approximately a dozen among them must have concrete
experience in war. According to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, more than 200 fighters with German
nationality are still present in the civil war area. Some 25 fighters are
probably dead.

Hans-Georg Maaßen
warned about the terrorist danger posed by those veterans. He pointed to the
attack in Brussels, during which four people were shot dead at a Jewish museum.
The presumed perpetrator was the French national Mehdi Nemmouche. The
29-years-old man had allegedly taken part in the Syrian civil war for over a
year. This would be the first attack of an individual having returned from
Syria to Europe.

Although the Office has
no evidences of a „concrete terrorist mission” in Germany, “a considerable
danger” is still posed by the militant returners, Maaßen warned. “The timely
recognition of the returners and the application of proper measures make the
security forces face a great challenge”, he admitted. It is precisely to
Germany that it is quite simple to travel through the Turkish border to Syria.

A working team shall
now find out how to deal with this challenge in the states belonging to the G7
group. There are talks about measures to make more difficult for suspected individuals
to travel to Syria, or to be able to identify them more easily as Syrian
fighters. The flow of information shall be strengthened so that individual estates
can better inform each other about potentially dangerous returners.

„Watch out, man in the
place!“ This is what one hears in the Hallenbad
public bath in Zürich whenever a caretaker enters the women’s dressing cabins
or showers. Some of those present continue taking their shower unperturbed, and
others quickly grasp a towel and cover their nakedness, all according to one’s
level of shame. There are no problems or conflicts.

But in the Frauenbad (women’s bath) public bath in Eglisee
- Basel, the situation is different. Here it is not about the zone of the
dressing cabins, but about the public bath itself. As last Sunday the caretaker
went to the women’s sector, a number of bath visitors confronted him. An entire
group of Turkish women demanded him to go away – an eyewitness reported to the
newspaper 20 Minuten. The caretaker
calmly but firmly stated that he was just doing his work. This was a reason
strong enough for the group to go to the cashier and demand back the price for
the entrance tickets. “The women were rude and insulted the staff”, Eric
Hardman, a member of the Basel City Sport Office declared after the incident. A
Turkish man who arrived to the place also insulted the caretaker with rude
expressions. The situation was then so bad that the man had to be carried away
by the security personnel. The five Turkish women too left the public bath.

It is not the first
occasion that problems arise in this place. Male caretakers are always a thorn
in the side of Muslim women. But in the past, conflicts arose regularly even
among women themselves. Strongly religious Muslim women and natives from Basel
had conflicts: the former were sitting covered in the public bath, the latter
were taking sunbath uncovered. This so-called “clash of cultures” was taken under
control through mediation, but the problem was not solved.

(...)

The caretaker in
question did not want to talk to BaZ yesterday.
“We would like to protect our staff. The situation has turned already difficult
enough”, Howald added. But one does not want to bend to the demands of the
Muslim women. “We just could not do that”, Howald said. There are not enough
female staff members to be able to run the place only with women. But this is
not the only reason: “we do not let ourselves be extorted”, the manager said
resolutely. “It just can’t go that far as to have to close down the place
someday because of individual groups”.

The thought of turning
the bath into a mixed one for both genders, at least during the weekends, keeps
coming up. “In this way, the Muslim women in question would not come here
again”. But he wants to avoid this at all costs. “We would not like to take
away the possibility to use this place of retreat from tolerant women who
appreciate the public bath.

But something must
change, and Howald is convinced about this. There are already women who do not
come to the baths in nice weekends anymore, because “hell breaks loose” every
time. The managing board is worried about the staff, too. “We try to support
them in order to avoid that one day one of them breaks down”. This situation is
very burdening for the staff.

Immediate measures are
expected to bring an initial improvement (of the situation). Indications in
German and French can be read on placards at the entrance that male staff must
also carry out their duties in the bath. After the incident on Sunday, these
indications have been made more conspicuous. “The cashiers have also been
instructed to inform Muslim women about these rules so that they can decide
whether they want to take a bath under our rules or not”.